Rangers trade Artemi Panarin to Kings for Liam Greentree, draft picks
Beating the 3 p.m. NHL roster freeze with seconds to spare, the New York Rangers traded Artemi Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday in exchange for top forward prospect Liam Greentree, a conditional third-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft and a conditional fourth-rounder in 2028.
Panarin and the Kings reportedly agreed to a two-year, $22 million contract extension as part of the trade. The Rangers also retained half of Panarin’s current $11.643 million salary-cap hit to facilitate this trade with the Kings.
Vince Mercogliano of The Athletic reported that Panarin’s agent was in contact with several teams as late as Wednesday to determine the destination for his client, since Panarin owns a no-movement clause in his contract and drove the bus on this deal. Given the information at hand, Panarin informed the Rangers to finalize a trade with the Kings.
Rangers general manager Chris Drury worked within these parameters, and he closed the deal with the Kings shortly before the roster freeze went into effect for the Winter Olympics.
Getting a deal done now as opposed to after Feb. 22, when the roster freeze lifts, and before the March 6 NHL Trade Deadline, was paramount to all parties involved. Hence, the urgency to finalize a trade Wednesday.
Panarin will use the the upcoming three-week break to move his family to California and settle in with his new team. And the trade limbo is lifted off the Rangers, who now can shift their focus the rest of their stated retool. That includes seeing what the trade market looks like for other players they might consider moving, including veteran center Vincent Trocheck.
The Panarin trade is the second made by the Rangers since publicly signaling their intent to retool the roster amid a disappointing season gone sideways. Last week, the Rangers traded defenseman Carson Soucy to the Islanders for a third-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft.
Rangers land forward prospect Liam Greentree in trade with Kings
Greentree, who stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 207 pounds, was a first-round pick (No. 26 overall) by the Kings in the 2024 NHL Draft. The 20-year-old forward is captain of Windsor in the Ontario Hockey League, and has 23 goals and 45 points in 34 games this season.
He broke out with a huge year last season, scoring 49 goals and totaling 119 points in 64 games with Windsor.
Jess Rubenstein from Prospect Park provided Forever Blueshirts the following scouting report on Greentree:
“Good size … going to remind people of Jamie Benn with his creativity. Solid playmaking ability, but skating needs improvement, and on the defensive side. Good news is he creates his own offense. Bad news is he is projected to be a middle-six forward not a first-line player.”
Artemi Panarin leaves lasting legacy as an all-time Rangers great
Panarin led the Rangers in scoring each of his first six seasons after signing a massive seven-year, $81.5 million contract on July 1, 2019. He leads them again this season with 57 points (19 goals, 38 assists) in 52 games.
Since 2019-20, only five players have more points than Panarin — Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Nathan MacKinnon, David Pastrnak, and Nikita Kucherov.
Simply, he’s the best free-agent signing in Rangers history, and goes down as one of their best –and most exciting — players ever.
Panarin had 607 points (205 goals, 402 assists) in 482 regular-season games with the Rangers, and his 1.26 points-per-game average is best in franchise history. He ranks eighth all-time for the Rangers in assists, ninth in points, and 14th in goals.
In 2023-24, Panarin recorded a career-high 120 points, the second-most productive scoring season in Rangers history, behind Jaromir Jagr, who had 123 points in 2005-06. Panarin scored 49 goals in 2023-24, tied for fifth-most in franchise history.
With free agency looming and Panarin turning 35 in October, Drury informed the star forward a few weeks ago that the Rangers wouldn’t offer him a contract extension. That set the wheels in motion for team and player to work together on a trade that Panarin would waive his no-movement clause for. In the past week, it became clear that Panarin sought a contract extension to go along with being sent to his preferred destination.
The low-scoring Kings were rumored to have interest in Panarin throughout this process, but the great unknown was whether The Breadman had interest in them. Clearly he did.
Panarin returns to Madison Square Garden with his new team on March 16.
